Brad Flory column: Pass the barbecue sauce and taste the changes in Jackson

Quality of life in a city sometimes changes in ways we don’t notice until traveling to a more famous destination.

One change in Jackson was fully measured inside a celebrated barbecue restaurant in Clarkston.

Clarkston is a little town between Flint and Detroit known for outdoor concerts on a hill. Now it is also known for Union Woodshop, a barbecue place named “Restaurant of the Year” for 2011 by the Detroit Free Press.

Curiosity, adventure and appetite led the Flory family to Clarkston last weekend.

Ambiance and prices were upscale for barbecue, but Union Woodshop was a pleasant place where everyone seemed happy and the food was delicious. But that’s not the point.

When my son failed to order pulled pork, the barbecue food he loves best, I demanded explanation.

“Pulled pork is risky except at Mat’s in Jackson,” he said. “It’s usually disappointing compared to Mat’s.”

West Texas Barbeque, also in Jackson, makes beef brisket that tastes like food God serves to angels, assuming heavenly paradise includes meat, which it should. I ate brisket in Clarkston and could not decide if it ranked ahead of West Texas. It was a tie, to my taste.

“This place is good,” my son said as we finished eating. “But I’d rather go to Rocky Top.” That’s in Jackson, too.

Waddling to the car, I realized we made complimentary remarks about three Jackson barbecue places in comparison to a “Restaurant of the Year.”

How did that happen?

A decade ago, I was ashamed to tell a former Texas resident that Jackson had no barbecue joints.

West Texas Barbeque, 2190 Brooklyn Road, was around for 20 years as a catering place. Then, in 2007, it opened the BBQ Joint, which serves lunchtime dinners in an industrial setting never mistaken for fancy.

Mat’s Cafe, 212 S. Mechanic St., opened for lunch in 2005. The owner put a smoker out back and decorated the sidewalk with a sign displaying a pig. Only vegans and people with religious rules can ignore a pig sign.

Rocky Top Beer and BBQ, 1900 Lansing Ave., opened in 2008. It is a full restaurant with bar and table service.

Jackson has more barbecue places, too, but I have not tasted them all.

Texans can now be told Jackson is no desolate barbecue wasteland. Not even close.

Change so big deserves to be noticed.

Greater advancements might be found in history, but here’s a vote of thanks from one guy with joy in his heart and sauce on his chin.